“Come on,” I said, and pointed to a bank of doors. I broke into a run.
4
We burst into the outside world, a few still swinging buckets. We huddled at the top of the steps leading down to the Gallien Road, Cammit and Quilly grunting as they carried Freed between them. I heard the clang of the Lord High’s squat bus and saw a dozen or so night soldiers running in front of it, spread out across the wide thoroughfare. I had thought Kellin’s little vehicle might be the only motorized transport left in Lilimar, but I was wrong. There was one ahead of the night soldiers, leading the pack, and unlike the bus, it wasn’t powered by electricity. It blatted and backfired as it came toward us. Enormous handlebars jutted from the front of a board wagon. Four ironbound wheels struck sparks from the cobbles.
At the front, adding to whatever power the wagon’s motor was supplying, was Red Molly, sitting on a high seat and pedaling for all she was worth. Her huge knees flashed up and down. She was bent over the handlebars like a daredevil motorcycle rider. We might have been able to beat the rest to the gate, but she was coming fast.
I saw red-and-white-striped posts, I saw the downed snarl of trolley wires I had almost tripped over, and I saw the nest of brambles into which I’d thrown my pack so I could run a little faster. I hadn’t made it that time and I wasn’t going to make it this time, either. None of us were unless that pack was still there.
“That bitch, I’ll take er on!” Iota growled, balling his fists.
“I’ll stand with you,” Ammit said. “I will or dammit.”
“No,” I said. I was thinking of Woody’s nephew Aloysius, and how Red Molly’s mother had swatted his head from his shoulders. “Eye, wait.”
“But I can—”
I grabbed his shoulder. “She hasn’t seen us yet. She’s looking straight ahead. I’ve got something. Trust me.” I looked at the others. “Stay here, all of you.”
Hunching low, I ran down the steps. The blatting, burping motor-wagon was now close enough for me to see Red Molly’s features… but she was still looking straight ahead, squinting—maybe nearsighted—and expecting to see the crowd of us running for the gate.
I could have caught her by surprise, maybe, but then a small figure dressed in green britches—green britches with the seat torn out—ran into the street, waving its arms. “He’s there!” Peterkin screeched, pointing directly at me. How had he seen us? Had he been waiting? I never knew, and I never gave a shit, either. That pipsqueak fuck had a way of turning up at the worst possible moment.
“He’s there, right there!” Pointing. Leaping up and down in his excitement. “Do you not see him, you great half-blind bitch, HE’S RIGHT TH—”
She never slowed, simply leaned down and swatted him. Peterkin rose into the air. I caught one glimpse of his face, stamped with a terminal expression of shocked surprise, and then he separated at the middle. Red Molly’s blow had been strong enough to literally rip him in two. He must have risen twenty feet in the air, intestines uncoiling as he went. I thought of Rumpelstiltskin again, was powerless not to.
Red Molly was grinning, and the grin revealed teeth filed to points.
They hadn’t found my backpack, thank God. It was still in the brambles. Thorns scrawled cuts up my bare arms as I pulled it out. I didn’t feel them. One of the straps holding the pack closed slid out easily; the other bound up. I tore it away and pulled out cans of sardines, a jar of Jif, a spaghetti sauce jar filled with dog food, a shirt, my toothbrush, a pair of undershorts—
Iota grabbed my shoulder. My little band of water-warriors had followed him down the steps against my orders, but that was for the best after all.
“Eye, take them and run! Carry Freed yourself. The ones who still have water, they’re your rearguard! At the gate, shout open in the name of Leah of the Gallien! Can you remember?”
“Yuh.”
“YOUUU DIE NOW!” Red Molly screamed. Her voice was a deep baritone powered by mighty lungs.
“Then go!”
Eye waved one meaty arm at the others. “Come on, you lot! Hump it for your lives!” Most did. Ammit didn’t. He had apparently appointed himself my guardian.
There was no time to argue with him. I found Polley’s .22 and yanked it free, along with a few more cans of sardines and a package of Nabisco Honey Grahams that I didn’t even remember packing. Red Molly stopped thirty feet from the Trolley House steps and scrambled down from her high seat, one arm sodden to the elbow with Peterkin’s blood. Ammit placed himself in front of me, which was a problem unless I intended to shoot him in the head. I shoved him aside.